About the Marine and Coastal Projections

The Marine and Coastal Projections report is one of four scientific reports that have been published on UKCP09. The report provides a set of scenarios that can be used to assess climate vulnerability. It covers the UK coastal zone and the waters of the shelf seas.

The Marine and Coastal Projections report includes information on the methodology that has been used to produce the data. It should be noted that the methodology used to produce the marine and coastal projections is materially different to the one used for the climate projections over land, and which is described in the Climate Change Projections report.

The Marine and Coastal Projections report provides an overview of the projected marine and coastal changes around the UK. For more detailed analysis use the report in conjunction with the User Interface, which provides access to the datasets from the simulations presented in the report.

A copy of the Marine and Coastal Projections report can be downloaded from the Reports and Guidance section.

What to use it for

The marine and coastal projections report should be used to:

Understand the methodology behind the marine and coastal projections

Get an overview of the marine and coastal projections for UK coastal regions and the surrounding shelf seas.

Support climate change adaptation assessments and strategies that are affected by marine and coastal change.

What to be aware of

The marine projections are less well developed than the UKCP09 projections over land and marine areas. Many of the marine projections are based on a single emissions scenario (A1B); three emission scenarios are only considered for mean sea level. Only mean and extreme (surge) sea levels projections consider different time periods. The original shelf seas projections also do not consider uncertainty.

The science behind the marine projections is less developed than in the terrestrial projections, and there are fewer observations available. This means there could be future impacts that are greater than those projected by the methodology. The H++ scenario was developed to address this possibility. This is a very high impact, and low probability scenario for the mean and extreme sea level projections. It uses additional observations and model simulation data to consider the maximum possible level of impact.

More information

For more information on the marine and coastal projections, use the links on the left to navigate to further guidance pages.